


The Five People You Meet in Harvelle's Roadhouse (The Bar is Called Heaven Remix)

by nwhepcat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Heaven, Heaven's Civil War, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Trueform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:51:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has been here before, but things aren't what they used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five People You Meet in Harvelle's Roadhouse (The Bar is Called Heaven Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Everyone Is Trying to Get to the Bar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/545240) by [Balder12](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balder12/pseuds/Balder12). 



> Written for the Kamikaze Remix, as a remix of Balder12's "Everyone Is Trying to Get to the Bar."

It took Dean a while to realize where he was--after all, the times he had awakened in the Impala at the side of some dark road were pretty well innumerable by now. The moment when he stepped out onto the asphalt to drain the snake, the discovery that he _didn't_ have Post-Bender Defcon One Bladder Pressure clued him in that something was off.

An uneasy feeling of deja vu swept over him, though he couldn't say why. It was in no way connected to the fact that nothing hurt, because that was new. Dean had no pain anywhere: not a headache from his epic drunk, not the bashed elbow from the last hunt, not even the lingering pain in his hip that had dogged him ever since Purgatory.

At this he went stock still, taking in his surroundings. Despite the dense woods crowding toward the ribbon of road, the night was eerily silent.

" _Fuck_ ," Dean said, and he knew if he were still shitfaced he'd be singing "I think I'm back in Heaaaa-ven" right now. Everything came back to him in a rush: the sweat-greased dude looming in the door of the Impala, the gun pointed in his face as Dean fumbled for his own. Then: nothing.

Then: this.

And yeah, now he was standing in that same spot where he'd landed before. He knew that behind the pines there at eleven o'clock, he'd find a field, a replica of the one he and his brother had burned when they were young dumbasses.

So where was--

"Sam," he said on an exhale, as if he'd been kicked in the gut. It wasn't the kid with the box of fireworks he was thinking of, though, but the Sam he'd left back at the motel. The Sam who was still twitchy about the months Dean had spent in Purgatory. After all this, to leave his brother behind due to a stupid fucking _carjacking_...

A burst of static crackled over the radio, with the faint sound of Dean's name layered underneath. His heart thumping, Dean wrenched open the Impala's door and dove inside, turning up the volume. "Cas?"

"Not quite."

In the next moment the passenger door creaked open and someone got in. Dean reached for the gun at his spine -- not there -- before he realized it was Ash.

"Jesus, man. Don't do that to a guy who's just had his head blown off."

Setting a compact but complicated-looking piece of equipment on the dash, Ash said, "Drive."

Without questioning, Dean pulled his keys from his pocket and started the Impala. No answering rumble came from the engine, though he could feel from the vibration of the steering wheel that she was running.

"Straight until I tell you," Ash said. After a moment he said, "So you were shot?"

"In the fucking face. Fucking carjacked by a tweaker."

"That's not how I heard it."

"Heard it?" Dean said. "Dude, it just happened minutes ago."

"2.73529 seconds ago, actually." Before Dean could even take that in, Ash blurted, " _Left._ "

"There's no--"

" _Left!_ "

Jerking the wheel hard to the left, Dean braced for impact with the pines, hoping it wasn't possible to die again once you're in Heaven. But there was no bruising impact. It seemed as though the trees parted like a curtain, and beyond them was not more forest or an open field but another road, this one as familiar as the empty forest-lined two-lane. Four lanes cut through a concrete landscape dotted with used car lots, liquor stores, Goodwill stores, burger joints and standalone car washes. Dean could read this type of landscape as easily as a map--it was an old part of whatever town he was in, and the Impala was outbound. Not only that, but he recognized just which increasingly irrelevant roadway this was--or imitated, to be more precise. There's a drive-in movie coming up on the right, and beyond it, the roadhouse.

It was nothing like the last time he saw it on earth, and nothing like Ash's previous heavenly version. It wasn't an interior hidden in a shack covered with sigils -- it looked like it did the first time Dean saw it. The gravel lot had a few cars and trucks parked outside. As he turned into the lot, a man came out of the roadhouse and hoisted himself into a battered Ford pickup.

"Nice window dressing."

"Well, that's just the thing," Ash said. "It ain't window dressing."

"How's that?"

Ash removed his gadget from the dashboard and opened the passenger door. "Come inside, and you'll get an idea."

Shrugging, Dean followed him to the entrance. It crossed his mind to make a wisecrack about the lack of new paint, even in Heaven, but since he found the weathered familiarity of it somehow comforting, he refrained. Inside it was the same, too. Hunters sitting around tables telling stories, guys playing pool or loading up the old jukebox with quarters.

Dean shot a glance at Ash. "What happened to everyone's own private Heaven?"

"The four-leggeds have taken over the barnyard," Ash responded.

"The angels have left?"

"No. They're flat out of vessels, though, so the ones who didn't make it out or die in the big revolt have retreated to the Garden." Ash nodded toward a corner of the bar room. "I think someone's trying to catch your eye."

A blonde-haired girl rose from one of the tables of hunters, pushing her chair back with a screech of wood on wood. _Jo._

She looked like live-Jo, not the pale assassin who was a tool of Osiris. Reaching him, she clutched Dean to her as he was still too stunned to move. "Dammit, Dean," she said into his shirt.

He kissed her on top of her head. "Hey, Jo."

Her eyes glittering with unshed tears, she pulled back to meet his eyes, offering a wavering smile. "I've been wanting to say I'm sorry for almost killing you, but I could have waited."

This time it was Dean who pulled her close. "I knew that already." He let her lean into him for a long moment.

"What happened?"

"Tweaker stuck a gun in my face and told me to let him have my car."

She broke the embrace again, her mouth twitching in a scowl. "Let me guess. You said, 'Oh hell no, not my baby.'" Without even waiting for confirmation, she slapped the flat of her hand against his chest. " _Stupid._ "

"If it hadn't gone down that way, it would have been another," Ash pronounced. He had somehow obtained a PBR without having left their side, but was ignoring it at the moment. "That was no tweaker, it was an angelic hit man."

Dean scoffed. "Where'd you get a crazy-ass idea like that?"

"Angel radio," Ash said. "That wasn't the first time they tried."

"I thought they weren't a threat anymore."

"Not to the rest of us," Ash said. "But they can be pissy bastards. I hope this won't insult you, but it's not even you they're after."

"That's funny, having my brains splattered all over rich Detroitian leather sure _feels_ like they were after me."

Ash crushed his empty PBR can in his hand. "Well, it's your angel they really want."

Restraining a flare of annoyance over "your angel," Dean said, "Cas? What do they want with him?"

"Nothing much. Just someone to take it all out on."

Yeah. And wasn't there plenty to take out. The war with Raphael even before he ate at the all-you-can-eat Purgatory buffet. Then once he went all godlike, and then let the Leviathans slip loose--well, it was likely he wasn't on the short list for Angel of the Year. "So I'm the bait. Then the sooner we get me back down to earth, the better. And preferably before Sam wakes up and finds my brains plastered to the back glass of the Impala."

"That's flattering," Ash said, "but that's a little outside my skill set."

"Then who the hell _can_ send me back?"

Shaking his head, Ash said, "Look, I know you've been here and back so many times you think Heaven has a revolving door, but the only ones who can send you back are the ones who want you here."

Dean scowled. "Keep listening in. _Find_ a way." He stalked off to the bar and ordered a shot of Jack from the man who was tending bar.

"You're new," said the barkeep.

"Yeah, and therefore I'm not feeling real chatty," Dean snapped. "I'm not planning on being here long."

At that the man laughed long and loud, and Dean wished he could shoot him in the face. Fuck this. "Where's Ellen?"

"Don't be a dick, Dean," Jo said beside him. "This is my dad, Bill Harvelle."

The introduction knocked him for a loop. To Dean the Harvelle family had always been Ellen and Jo and, well, Ash too. Bill was someone from the distant past, and it hadn't occurred to him that he would be inhabiting Jo and Ellen's own private Heaven. Which had been an idiotic lapse on his part, but having it corrected was somehow profoundly unsettling.

Offering his hand, he said, "Dean Winchester."

"One of John Winchester's boys."

Suddenly Dean realized he'd made a far bigger lapse, forgetting that his dad was the man Ellen and Jo had blamed for Bill's death. _Man up and take it._ "Yes sir."

But all Bill Harvelle said next was, "I've heard a lot about you. From John and from my gals here."

Dean nodded. "Heard a lot about you, too," though he honestly didn't remember if this was true. The only important thing was the question that rocketed up through his brain and out his mouth: "Do you know where my dad is? Has he come through here?"

"No," Jo said. "But Heaven hasn't been free-range that long. We don't even know if everyone here has realized they can go wherever they like. Ash has been working on getting the word out."

Pivoting toward the last place he'd seen him, Dean called out, " _Ash._ "

"He's not your butler," Jo snapped.

Somehow it made Dean feel more at ease with her than the apology and near-tears.

Ash looked nothing like a butler when he ambled up to the bar--and despite Jo's taking offense, there was no hint at all that Ash been bothered by his tone. Abruptly he remembered Ash informing Dean and Sam that he'd been kicked out of MIT for fighting. Seriously, Dean didn't think he'd ever met a more loosely-wound hunter.

"'Sup?" Ash asked.

Dean clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Bill, get this scrawny sonofabitch whatever he's having." To Ash, he said, "Last time I was here you said you were trying to get a line on my mom and dad."

"Still haven't found a trace. I'm sorry, man."

A thought struck Dean with the sudden force of a wave of vertigo. "Oh Jesus," he whispered. "Jesus, Mom."

Jo's hand was instantly on his arm, offering comfort, and a breath later Ash gripped his shoulder to steady him.

"What?" Jo asked.

He could barely get the words out. "She made a deal. With Azazel. That's why Sam--" It sounded so terrible, so indefensible, that he hurried to add, "She did it for my dad. Azazel killed him, long before I was born. She didn't know, all she agreed to was that Azazel could come back in ten years so he'd bring my dad back." It felt like there was an enormous clamp pressuring his lungs past the bursting point. He was in Heaven, he didn't even _have_ lungs, but he sure couldn't tell it by the way he felt.

"Take it easy," Ash murmured.

But Dean felt like he had to get this out before it poisoned him. "What if she's not here?" And what if his father _was_ here and had looked for her and found out she'd gone --

After all his dad had suffered, what a fucked-up thing that would be.

Clenching his hands into fists, he struggled to keep it together--hell, too late for that--to get it back together. But then Ellen slid into the small group at his side and without a word Dean pulled her into a fierce hug that she returned with equal ferociousness. If he could just borrow enough strength from her to break through the panic and despair.... Drawing in a slow breath, Dean gradually relaxed his desperate hold on her. "Hey, Ellen." He stepped back to regard her. "Good to see you."

"You too, kid. But you could've waited a few decades."

"I've got to find my mom. I have to know she's here. My dad too."

"She did what she did out of love," Jo said. "That's got to count for something."

Biting back anger, Dean said, "Why do you think I made my deal when Sammy was killed?" _Love was in there somewhere, a notch below selfishness and terror at being alone._ "Didn't stop my deal from coming due." He looked toward Ash. "Can you help me find them?"

"I'll do what I can," Ash said. "For one thing, I can show you where they're _not_." Gesturing Dean to come with him, he led the way to his jumbled room, still marked by the Dr. Badass sign.

He rummaged through the wooden crate shelves that almost completely lined the walls, a rat's nest of papers, books and porn DVDs. "There's porn in Heaven?"

"Sure there is. Just the legit and consensual stuff, but there's plenty of that to be had." He tossed a DVD case Dean's way.

" _Touched by an Angel_?"

"It's nothing like what you'd think." At last he found a folder brimming with papers, which he handed over to Dean as he tucked his jerry-rigged computer under his arm.

"No Chinese computer sweatshops here either, I see," Dean said.

"Well, no, but this is more because I like to build 'em myself. Save the off-the-shelf stuff for people who play five eternities of Minesweeper before bed."

"Has it occurred to you that you're not the best infomercial spokesman for the post-lifestyle?"

Ash grinned. "Probably." He gestured Dean out of the room, and Dean tossed _Touched by an Angel_ back onto the bed before following Ash to a table at the back corner of the barroom. While Ash arranged his papers in a pattern across the table, Dean went to the bar for a couple of PBRs. The papers, when he returned, were laid out in a way that reminded Dean of a particularly complex Tarot card reading, one that used pretty much the whole deck.

Ash took the offered beer can without even seeming to turn his attention from the table. "First thing you have to understand, space isn't really space here. About as good as the average human brain can grasp it is thinking of it as a fractal."

"Well, that's a big relief," Dean said after a sip of Pabst. "Now what the fuck is a fractal?"

Well, that was a mistake. The question prompted a digression that lost Dean in the first four seconds, though Ash did spend some of that time showing him some freaky-cool art on the computer that he referred to as the Mandelbrot set. After that, he pulled up his diagram of Heaven as he'd mapped it out, and Dean sort of got the point.

"And this--" Ash's hands framed the multi-dimensional image on the computer screen-- "corresponds to this." Now his hands wave over the spread-out sheets of paper. "Follow?"

"Sure, like the difference between the _Star Trek_ chess board and a normal one," Dean said, but he was actually more involved with the thought that he wished Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were real--and also dead--because he'd love to see Ash and those two in the freestyle cage match of giant nerd brains.

"You get the idea," Ash said with enthusiasm. "So the sections with pink hashmarks are the areas I've been to. The gray hashmarks are areas people have come here from, and told me about. I plan to get to those in person, but probably not until I've seen more of the unexplored territories." He gestured to sections of the map that were completely white.

"Is there any pattern you can see on how this is all laid out? Not the fractal thing--" because even Dean could see that it was infinitely patterned, and the more he looked the more astonishingly beautiful it was-- "but, like, are there neighborhoods? Hunters here, Hutterites there?" He stabbed a finger toward random points on the map.

"Not that I can tell, but that might just be a lack of data."

"So..." Dean drew out the word, chewing at his thumbnail, "there's really no starting point."

"The Axis Mundi might lead you there. Eventually. Or you could wind up in the Garden, which could be problematic. They're pissy enough when random humans trespass, but they really don't like you."

"That's an understatement. But it's worth it, if I can find my mom and dad. What do I do, play hopscotch along the Axis Mundi until I hit the end of one of these tentacle fractal things, and maybe I'll be in the right place?"

"The way it works with a lot of people, there are invisible bands between people who love each other. They get drawn toward each other--anyway, that's how it works now that Heaven's getting more integrated. But I've run across some people who prefer their private Heavens. Your dad strikes me as that kind of guy, and he's always known how to hide, even from those who know what they're doing."

"You knew him?"

"Yeah, on earth. He stopped by the roadhouse."

Something occurred to him for the first time. "What about you, Ash? You haven't found your family here?"

"Well, sure. I looked up my kin after I figured out how. I was glad they're here, and they were glad I am. But they don't have a lot to say to a physicist, and I don't have much of interest to say to them, so we keep it to a reunion now and again. I get Bill Monroe or the Louvins to play, and it's a good time."

As dysfunctional as Dean's family was--the whole lot of them, he'd eventually learned learned--he couldn't begin to imagine a circumstance under which he'd be _meh_ about being with them. Dean couldn't say he was that enthusiastic about Heaven, but if his parents were here, this was where he'd want to be, "living" no more than a block away in fake-Lawrence or wherever else their own personal Heaven replicated.

"Have you heard anything about Bobby Singer in the last few months?"

"Nah. Did he kick it too?"

"Yeah." _Dammit._ It sucked beyond belief to think there was more than one person in his life that had a life worthy of going to Heaven but may have fucked their chances with a bad decision. He'd have to keep an eye out for Bobby, too.

"How do you want to approach this? Skip from one of these white spaces to another, or take your chances with the Axis Mundi? I can show you how to navigate around these--" Ash waved a hand at the tabletop with its mass of papers.

"Axis Mundi, I guess. I've been on it before."

"Yeah, well. Be careful."

Dean took his leave of the Harvelles, spirits buoyed by hugs from Ellen and Jo and a warm handshake from Bill. This is what Dean wanted--eventually--his broken family made whole after so many years. With Ash he exchanged a handshake turned back-thumping hug. "Thanks, man," Dean said. "I owe you."

"Let me hear how it turns out."

"Knowing you, you'll know it before I do."

When he stepped outside of the roadhouse, the parking lot was gone, the Impala was gone. Hell, the roadhouse was gone. He was back where he'd started from--both times he'd arrived in Heaven (maybe _all_ the times he'd wound up here, all the ones he didn't remember). The road. The thick columns of pine, lining each side of the road. Stars above him, but no recognizable constellations to guide him. How had he gotten started last time? Sam had been there with a box of fireworks, waiting for him.

"Well," he said softly, feeling incredibly stupid, "here I am."

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than a colossal roar sounded from above, but within a second it was coming from everywhere, around him and inside him. A bright sphere appeared overhead, growing brighter and bigger by the second.

The next thing Dean knew, something careened into him, knocking him off his feet and crashing with him into the ditch. The bright thing grew bigger until it was all he could see, tall as a skyscraper. As it flew past the pines he saw it was infinitely more complex than a sphere, propelled by whip-like limbs, encircled by rings at different angles and speeds. It left smears of pearlescent light in its wake, gleaming on the asphalt and on the trees it grazed as it passed. The inner structure of it was covered in faceted lights--no, they were _eyes_.

Without being aware of the movement, Dean must have started to rise up from the ditch, because a voice hissed, "Stay down," accompanied by a hand shoving him downward.

"Ash?"

"Keep still until they're gone."

"They?"

Dean no sooner had the word out of his mouth when another three monstrously sized things came careening after the first. They were nothing like the first, except that they were huge and they too left trails of light behind them. They weren't even like one another. One had a snake's tail and the heads of a lion, an ox and an eagle. Another resembled a sweet pea plant blown up to monstrous size. The third--some tiny, Spock-like part of Dean's brain marveled at how often when you learned a new word you found a use for it in the same day. The third was a snowflake as tall as the Empire state building, made of shifting, prismatic fractals.

"Holy fucking shitballs!" yelped the rest of his brain, the part that was controlling his mouth.

"Not exactly," Ash said. "Them's angels."

There was a sonic boom and the ground shook beneath them, but Dean's view of what was going on was obscured by the three skyscraper-sized pursuers. Trees uprooted and fell all around them, dipped in glowing light. It was like one of those old Japanese movies with all the monsters, Mothra and Ghidrah and Rodan and Godzilla, if they'd eaten every glow stick at the world's biggest rave.

"Those are angels?"

"Ezekiel saw the wheel way up in the middle of the air," Ash said, as if it was an answer.

"How'd you know to come after me?"

"Angel alarm went off."

The stomping of Tokyo in the woods slowed to a stop, and the angels moved off, the three seeming to drag off the other. Dean levered himself up from the ditch, shaking Ash off. Kneeling beside a streak of the glowing goo, he touched two fingers to it and rubbed them together.

"Angel blood," Ash informed him, prompting Dean to wipe his hand down his jeans. "I've seen a fair amount of it the last few years."

"I thought you said they never leave the Garden."

"Not so much anymore. If one gets caught alone, it gets mobbed by humans." Ash rubbed his hand over his jaw. "I've got a bad feeling about this. We need to get back to the roadhouse so I can get a read on what's happening."

" _You_ need to go back. I'm catching the next trolley on the Axis Mundi."

"I think it would be a lot better if you waited to see what's going on."

"I'm not waiting. I'm finding my family. Whatever this is? It has nothing to do with them, or me."

For a moment it looked like Ash was about to argue--or maybe even show him some of his old form that got him kicked out of MIT--but instead he shrugged and stepped into a ragged stand of trees that dripped with the glowing goo.

Dean moved away from the bright smears on the pavement, back where the treeline is unbroken on either side. Walking in the center of the two-lane, the dark gathered around him as he walked away from the scene of the battle, the trees seeming to draw closer to the road. Nothing happened, no visitation of a memory. He flicked through a mental Rolodex of memories, but nothing stuck, nothing lit a spark. Could the Axis Mundi have been broken somehow by the human takeover? Wouldn't Ash have known that?

It was an hour or an eternity before Dean had his answer. It came the way answers usually did to Dean, with a thump on the head. Somehow his feet got tangled up and he lurched forward, falling. When he landed, he was not on asphalt but vinyl tile, and it was not the fresh pain of hitting the floor he felt so much as the flare of recent injuries. Jammed shoulder, bruised or broken rib (maybe two), cuts and scrapes on his right hand and arm.

"Ooh, that was clumsy," said a voice above him. It belonged, Dean knew, to the asshole who had just stuck his foot out to send him flying. "Guess you're still going through that awkward stage." A chorus of guffaws sounded over him. Great. Jeff Hoskins and his band of minions. "Need a hand getting up?"

"No thanks," Dean said, well aware that he was screwed either way. Planting his hands on the gray vinyl, he hoisted himself up and got his feet beneath him, only to have Jeff sweep a sneakered foot around to tumble him onto the floor again.

 _I'm due for a growth spurt by the end of the school year_ , he wished he could say, _and then I'll kick your ass._ But that wasn't how things worked here (and why was he reliving this shit in Heaven anyway?).

A piercing whistle blast nearly deafened them all and made Hoskins and his minions back away at speed.

Ms. Landon, gym teacher and reputed lesbian, let her whistle fall to the end of its lanyard. "Boys," she said, "the last bell rang half an hour ago. Unless you're in drama or detention, it's time you were heading home."

Dean wasn't sure if it was the threat of detention or the implication they were the drama sort, but they hauled ass. Carefully, Dean knelt to pick up the books he'd dropped when he was sent flying.

Ms. Landon fingered the whistle. "It's Dean, isn't it?" At his affirmative grunt, she asked, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," he said, without the slightest hesitation.

"Come with me to my office, would you?" It sounded like an invitation, but Dean hadn't even needed the _deja vu_ version of this event to know it wasn't the kind of invitation he could refuse. He knew the intro to a "how are things at home?" talk by the time he hit middle school, and he knew he'd been carrying himself stiffly to favor his ribs and shoulder. A gym teacher would definitely have seen that.

Impatient, but knowing he had no better ideas on how to find the next stop along the Axis, Dean followed her to her office. His barely pubescent self might not have appreciated her compact body, he saw plenty of reasons to admire her athletic grace that held just a hint of swagger. It was one of the rare times his mind strayed to what kind of hunter she would make even before he wondered how she'd be in bed.

He caught himself just before he made a suggestive comment, the sort of trial balloon he sent up on meeting pretty much any woman. _You're **twelve**_ , he reminded himself. Not that it mattered in the slightest what he said. Ms. Landon was just a tape loop, like one of the simulated homebreakers in a state-of-the-art weapons training range.

Her office was not much bigger than a closet, and it seemed like more than half the space was taken up with sports equipment. When she waved him to a chair, Dean picked up the basketball on its seat, getting his stories in line. But when he looked up, he was no longer in the office with cinderblock walls, but in standing in a driveway, staring up-- _way_ up--at a man in a red t-shirt. Dean had the basketball clutched to his belly, and suddenly it felt as big as a beachball.

"Now you bounce it, like this," said his uncle Mike. He wasn't a real uncle, because neither Dad or Mom had any brothers, and Dean never knew his actual connection, but Dean had loved him when he was little, and as far as he'd been concerned Uncle Mike _was_ family.

Dean tried to imitate the movement Mike showed him, but he was too little and uncoordinated to get it right, so the ball fumbled from his hands and made little hops down the slight slope of the drive.

Part of Dean wished he could grab Mike into a hug and hang out with him for hours, but he knew Mike's presence could only mean he'd stumbled on the Axis Mundi. He was headed toward his parents.

"Dean."

Heart hammering, Dean whirled, but it was just Ash.

" _What?_ "

Uncle Mike dribbled the ball back up the driveway, chattering to Dean as he did so.

"I found out what's going on with the angels."

"As long as they go back to their playpen, I don't give a shit. I'm getting warmer here."

"It's Castiel."

"What? What's Castiel?"

Uncle Mike bounced the ball a couple of times then sent it arcing toward the basket bolted to the garage.

"The angel the other three were chasing. It was a trap. That's why the angels went after you, because they knew Castiel wouldn't be far behind."

"Wait, what? I'm bait? Hell, not even that, I'm chum?"

Ash shrugged apologetically. "They took him to the Garden, and they've got him on the rack."

"Do you know how to spell horse, Dean?" Uncle Mike asked.

"Dammit, Ash, I'm getting close to my family. How can--"

"You've got eternity to find them."

"That's fucking easy for you to say, Ash. If either or both of them is in Hell, it's ten years for every month on earth."

"If," was all Ash said.

Dean got what Ash was saying. He _knew_ Castiel was on the rack, being tortured by his own kind with the intimate knowledge of what would do the most damage, or cause the most prolonged agony. The angels were stuck in the Garden for eternity, under siege by the creatures they'd been usurped by--both in God's affections and now in Heaven. Castiel would be playoff season, the summer blockbuster, Six Flags, Monsters of Rock and the 24-hour porn channel all rolled into one. Now and for all fucking eternity.

Swallowing his bitterness at being forced into a choice that was for shit either way he jumped, Dean said, "So how do we bust him out?"

"We've got a tavern full of hunters, let's sit down with a few and see what we can put together."

"What's to stop them from killing Cas, too?"

"That'd be you. You might want to be working those skills of persuasion."

"Fuck. Me." Dean muttered. He started to accompany Ash, then said, "Hold up." Turning back toward the basketball hoop, he called out, "Uncle Mike?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

Hesitant, not entirely sure whether Mike was a sophisticated video game or the real deal, Dean scuffed his way over the asphalt to face him. "You're the best," he said, pulling him in for a hug.

Mike returned the embrace, finishing by ruffling Dean's hair the way he always used to. "You too. Don't ever change, kiddo."

Eyes shining, Dean turned back to Ash. "Let's get this done."

***

The strategy session was, unexpectedly, like Uncle Mike to the tenth power. Sitting at a table with Jo, Ellen, Ash, Pastor Jim, Caleb and Rufus Turner was emotional as fuck. They weren't the only ones on hand, just the ones who were family. The others, invited because they were likelier to stay on mission and keep Cas alive, were Bill Harvelle, Eliot Ness, Moishe Campbell and Annie Hawkins. Nearly a dozen hunters gathered on a mission, something Dean had never experienced. Yet without Sam and Bobby there, they seemed like a ragged little band.

"Look, I know I'm a Heaven newbie," Dean told the assembled team. "I don't have the slightest clue how you rescue something that's as tall as the Chrysler Building, much less kill other things that are the same size. But Ash tells me they're killable, so tell me what you know."

"The laws of physics don't work the same way up here because it's a spiritual realm," Ash said. "We each shape our own reality here. It was true the last time you were here, and it's still true even after we humans started expanding our personal paradise to include others. There's streets paved with gold where the Church of Biblical Literalism set up camp."

"So?" Dean asked impatiently.

"So the same is true of the Garden, and of the angels themselves. How they appear depends on what you've been trained to expect and what your brain is wired to handle."

"Okay, yeah, I get it. Last time I was here I saw Zachariah as his human vessel."

"This time you got a little more biblical version."

"Yeah. Something Castiel said made me do some reading a couple of years ago."

"So if we're gonna do battle against them," Ash said, "we need to alter our concept of what they are--or juice ourselves up so we're at their level. We all need to be on the same page about our company, our enemy and the battlefield."

"What do you suggest we do, get hypnotized?" Dean asked.

Ash pointed at him. "Not a half bad idea."

Dean groaned. If he got out of this without clucking like a chicken, he'd be eternally surprised.

***

"Onward Christian soldiers," Ash said over their com links. He was the Oracle of the operation, monitoring angel radio throughout and keeping everyone linked. Pastor Jim, Jo, Rufus and Caleb were with Dean on the extraction team, while Moishe and Ness were setting up a massive distraction effort, and Ellen, Bill and Annie were tasked with clearing a path in and out.

They stormed the Garden, equipped with swords, spears and a variety of other stabby, slashy weapons forged from angel blades. Dean had wondered at the sheer number of blades in the armory, what epic battles must have raged for humans to capture this much weaponry.

Since Dean was the only one of them to have been in the Garden, their agreed-on topography was the Cleveland Botanical Garden. For the prison where Castiel was being held, Dean had envisioned a metal garage/shed for utility vehicles and impressed these same images on his fellow fighters.

Protected by his team, Dean focused as much of his attention as he could on finding his way to Cas. The complete lack of response, not even a stirring in the back of his mind, worried him. Instead he followed his instincts, blowing out a relieved breath when he climbed a rise and spotted the shed among gravel roads bisecting the lush greenery.

Angels came swarming out of the shed, weapons raised. Jo and Caleb led the charge, launching themselves toward the defenders. There was something about them he found disconcerting, which grew clearer as Dean waded in with his blade. Their features seemed vague somehow, and they all looked related, if not inbred. They seemed more like the sophisticated CGI characters in video games than actual people. And then it occurred to him as his sword rang out against an angel's sword: He realized these weren't angels with human vessels his mind could latch onto, just constructs of the shared Garden the hunters had all agreed on.

As they pressed toward the shed, more angels came out to fight, these already blood-smeared. _Cas's blood._ Rage surged through him, fueled by fear for Castiel, hatred for his torturer Alistair, disgust at his own decade as a master of the rack and blade. Swinging his blade viciously, he hacked his way through the opposition, barely aware of his comrades except for Jo, who came close to matching him in pace and intensity.

Thrusting aside his trepidation over what he might find when he got to Castiel, Dean gained the entrance of the shed. " _Cas? Castiel!_ "

The only answering sound was a wet, unrelenting cough from a room within the shed. Dean couldn't be sure if it was an attempt at a response or an ongoing coughing fit, but he knew the sound intimately--that of a man drowning in his own blood. Steeling himself for what he might find, he kicked in the door of the tool room to find Cas stretched out on a workbench, his whole body shuddering with each spasm. Blood spattered from his mouth each time he coughed, thick and oily-dark.

"Cas," Dean said again, and this time Castiel's eyes fluttered open, glazed over with pain, but a look of panic bleeding through. "Cas, it's me, " he started to say, but suddenly Dean was violently knocked aside as Jo yelped, "Watch out!"

She threw her angel-knife at a figure just emerging from the shadowed corner of the room, nailing it right between the eyes. The angel's form lit up like Christmas in suburbia. When Castiel's torturer was nothing more than a corpse with a pair of ashy-dark wings, Dean hurried to Cas's side.

"Hey," he said softly.

Cas's eyes weren't quite tracking, but it seemed he was aware of Dean's presence. Whether he recognized him was another matter.

"It's Dean. I'm taking you with me. Can you travel?" Even as he asked, Dean was examining Cas, looking for the kinds of wounds a talented torturer could inflict. If it weren't for the fact that Cas was a being of spirit, not flesh--and the certainty the other angels would want to prolong the revenge-fueled entertainment--Dean would have assumed he was dying.

He flicked his comm button. "Ash, Jo and I found him. We need all the fighters we can get to bring him out."

"On it." He put the word out while Dean tried to help Castiel sit up, an process that ended up with Cas folded over at the waist puking blood between his feet.

_Fuck. Maybe he was going to die._

"Cas. Listen to me. That thing you did with Bobby's soul. Try that on me."

Castiel shook his head at that, drizzling strings of blood on the floor like maple syrup.

"Don't give me that," Dean snapped. He seized one of Cas's hands and held it to his chest. "C'mon. Because if you fucking die I will never forgive you."

A sudden perspective shift hit him like a wave of vertigo, and he found himself standing ankle-deep in glowing fluid, at the foot of a skyscraper-sized Castiel. Dean backed up fast, but two blinks later, Cas looked human again, hunched over and listing to one side.

"Shit! Jo, did you see that?"

"Yeah."

"Ash! Pull everyone out! The hypno-mojo is wearing off!" Most likely, Dean thought, he was the one who compromised the goddamn mission, letting his emotions throw him off his game. "Jo, take off. I'll be out behind you."

"That'll happen," she retorted, crossing the room to yank her blade out of the other angel's eye. She wiped the blade on her pants and put it back in its sheath. "I'm standing guard while you do whatever you're going to do."

Dean nodded. "Cas, listen. There's not much time." Grabbing Castiel's hand, he felt broken bones grind together beneath his grip. But they'd all be worse off if Cas didn't do what he needed. He pressed Cas's hand to his chest. "C'mon. Reach in and get whatever you need."

For a moment Castiel was unresponsive.

"C'mon, Cas," Dean repeated softly.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, Castiel drew himself fractionally straighter and pushed his hand through Dean's chest. The pain was unfuckingbelievable. He thought he screamed, but it could have been the roaring in his ears. It seemed to last an eternity. When Cas finally withdrew, Dean tumbled to the dirt floor, his breath ragged.

"Dean," Jo said urgently. " _Dean._ " She shook him until he opened his eyes. "We've got to haul ass."

The shed had completely disappeared, unable to contain Cas at his full giant economy size.

"They're coming back!"

Dean struggled to stand, but promptly collapsed again. "Sonofabitch!" he muttered.

The other angels were gaining fast, and damn if little Jo didn't pull her sword and knife as if she could mow down every goddamned 100-story bastard. Suddenly two of the whip things snaked out from behind them and gathered Jo and Dean in.

 _Dean. Jo. I have you,_ Castiel said in their heads, and Jo quickly told Ash and the others to hold their fire if they saw him. Cas put on a pretty good burst of speed to evade the others, and Dean heard Jo's whoop of glee at the thrill ride just before his vision grayed out.

***

When he came to, Dean found himself cradled in a nest of feathers, something warm and velvety brushing against his face. He ducked his head back away from it, looking around. "What the fuck--? Where am I?"

_I am carrying you, Dean._

As his head cleared a bit, Dean blurted, "What happened to Jo?"

_I returned her to your comrades. They have all escaped the Garden. You were in no condition to go with them._

"Never mind that, what's your condition?"

_I am fine, Dean._

"Said in true Winchester fashion. But how are you?"

_I am improving. But I must rest to regain my strength, and so must you. We are safe here._

"Where's 'here'? Hole-in-the-Wall, Heaven?"

_Heaven is not safe for either one of us, especially in our weakened states. We are well hidden._

Dean realized he'd been unconsciously stroking the feathers, and instead of stopping, he gave a moment of fascinated attention to the way they were soft and--well, feather-like--when he touched them, and apparently blades of steel when he broke the contact. Finally he put his hand in his lap. "Who do I have to blow around here to get an answer to where is 'here'?"

The answer was equal parts amused and exasperated. _You are inside me. We are in the Marianas Trench, Pacific Ocean, Southern Hemisphere, Earth, Solar System, Orion-Cygnus Arm, Milky Way Galaxy._

"Marianas Trench," Dean repeated. "Deep end of the ocean."

_Yes. We are safe._

His head still swimming, Dean slowly sat up and then got to his feet. Swaying, he found himself steadied by one of the whips. Tentacles. Cas had tentacles.

"This is you," Dean said.

_Yes._

"Like Moya," Dean said to himself. Then to Castiel: "There's not some turtle-looking Muppet dude in the engine room, is there?"

There was a slight pause, flavored with a tinge of irritation. _I have no other beings inside. Nor an engine room._

Dean suppressed a grin. "Can I look around the place?"

_I'm not a place, Dean._

The grin broke free of its constraints. "Fine. Mind if I look around the you, then?"

_You should rest, Dean._

"I'll sleep when I'm dead -- oh. Wait. Then it seems like I've plenty of time for rest."

The wings parted to let him see what lay beyond, bathed in Castiel's soft glow. It was all intricate structures and spinning rings, reminding Dean of _Hugo_ , the one movie he'd been willing to pay extra to see in 3-D. Except these structures were organic. They were _Cas_.

He hadn't given too much thought to what he expected Heaven to be like, because he hadn't really believed in it until he got there. Even without preconceptions, he'd found it a letdown. It was so ordinary. This-- _Cas_ \--had what he'd been missing then. Wonder and awe and...glory. Dean couldn't put what he was feeling into words, because that would fuck it all up, but he hoped Cas could somehow read him and know.

Dean found himself a little unsteady yet, and easily tired. The tentacles kept him company, stabilizing him when he needed it, maintaining light contact when he stopped to rest. Petting him. Oddly, Dean found he didn't mind--in fact, he took more frequent breaks than he really needed, because god, he needed comfort even more than he did rest.

During one of those rest stops, he ventured, "Listen, Cas, I need to ask a favor."

 _What is it, Dean?_ His tone--if you could say a voice in Dean's head could have a tone--was accommodating, waiting for instruction.

Jarvis, Dean thought, and smiled. "When we get back to Heaven, I need to find my parents. To find Bobby. Will you help me do that? I need to make sure they're--" he can't say _not burning in Hell_ , so he says the faintly ridiculous "okay."

 _Dean_ , Cas begins sadly, and Dean feels a _no_ building up. _I cannot return to Heaven. Both men and angels want nothing more than to destroy me. It's not safe for you, either._

"Then what? I can't go to Hell; been there, done that, rode the rollercoaster. Same with Purgatory. I'm pretty sure no one's gonna let me live forever. So what's it going to be? Cas Hope and Dean Crosby on the road that never ends? Actually, I might not mind that. Inside of you is more like what I thought Heaven would be--and God, that was possibly the worst sentence that's ever come out of my mouth."

What seemed like a wave of fond amusement emanated from Castiel for a moment, then he said, _I am glad. The last time I carried you in this fashion, you were blinded to beauty and light._

"The last time--" Then, as his puzzlement fell away: "Oh." Funny how things come full circle--funny in that way that's not. Cas brought him out of Hell, cradled inside his true form, and how he had rescued him from Heaven.

A tentacle stroked his temple. _Your heart is heavy._

"I still don't know where my parents are. Heaven, Hell--I know they're not in Purgatory, at least. I don't know where Bobby is. All I've ever wanted in life was to be with my family. To have everyone together and safe. I can't even have that in death."

_You still have Sam. He needs you. And you have me. I will be there when you need me._

"You're sending me back."

_After we both have rested a while longer._

***

Dean awoke in the back seat of the Impala, sober as a judge, with Castiel touching two fingers to his forehead. "Whoa. What are you doing here?"

Cas just gave him the pale blue stare, seemingly going for the world record. After a long while, he said, "You were having a nightmare. You don't remember it?"

Shaking his head, Dean said, "No. I was pretty out of it. I had a few gallons of tequila in my system."

"You should get some rest."

"Yeah, I guess. Don't want Sammy waking up in the morning and thinking I'm lying dead in a ditch somewhere."

Again he caught Castiel watching him, an unreadable expression on his face. Cas reached out a hand from the front seat, gently brushing his fingers over Dean's cheek. It could, he thought, be the weirdest fucking thing Cas had ever done...yet somehow it felt familiar.

"Are you okay, Cas?"

"I'm fine," he said. In another heartbeat, he was gone.

Dean leaned back against the leather seat for a moment, his own hand rising to brush over the spot that Castiel had just caressed. Then he drove back to the motel, radio off, and let himself into the darkened room. Lowering himself onto a battered chair, he sat thinking about nothing, his thumb absently stroking the cheek that Cas had touched.

Sam woke at first light, on his guard at first as he registered the still figure seated by the door, then relaxing with the realization that it was Dean.

"Dean? Are you all right?"

Blinking, Dean roused himself. "Huh? Yeah, Sammy. I'm okay. I'm fine." At that he rose and shed his coat, then his shirt as he made his way toward a hot shower.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my betas, Amy Star, ElementalV and Dinalori for fantastic last-minute work.


End file.
